The Usage of Social Media in Super Bowl 2013 Advertisements

I was in the midst of writing this blog post when I came across a blog post on twitter talking about exactly the same thing I am going to be. That clearly is a great example of how fast social media has advanced. If you are not fast enough, somebody else will take over. Now that I think about it, isn’t this how the real life works as well?

Anyways, I am going to still continue with this post since I spent over an hour look at 73 Superbowl advertisements on Mashable. No, I don’t have so much time on my hand to be analyzing advertisements nor am I required to do so because of school. So let’s start.

Social Media has become the means for mass online communications. And, arguably, it is very important to create offline relationships. How many times have we met a potential employer, colleague, friend, significant other, or even a predator offline after learning about them online? I know I have had a few such experiences. Some pleasant and some not so much.

As a communications students, I was quite surprised to realize that not every advertisement mentioned or utilize social media for further customer engagement. The ones who had not even a mention of social media surprised me the most. Though, for the most part, most advertisements had some kind of online engagement mentioned in their advertisement. Even if they didn’t outright say so.

The commercials that got my attention immediately and made me actually look their hashtag or Facebook page up were the ones who went ahead and mentioned further online engagement.

Samsung – Go on twitter using the hashtag #TheNextBigThing and weigh in on the pitches

Budweiser – Help name the baby horse by using the hashtag #Clydesdales

 Speed Stick – Tweet your handle it moment at #HANDLEIT

Oreo – Choose your favourite side of Oreo cookie on Instagram @OREO (Let’s be different and use Instagram instead. Love it!)

AXE – Visit the website to win a chance to go to space (now who wouldn’t want to enter THAT contest)

Coke – Vote to decide who wins the race on a special Coke campaign website

Prudential – What’s the age of the oldest person you know? Add an age sticker on the organization’s website

MiO Fit – Help them decide what else to change either on their website or by tweeting using #changestuff hashtag

Lincoln – It is a continuation of their earlier campaign to create a script for a new advertisement. A viewer can read all about it on their website and/or join the conversation using #SteerTheScript hashtag on twitter. This is actually just a preview of what is to come.

Following are commercials which mention social media in some form or another.

Mercedes-Benz

Go Daddy - What I love about this advertisement is that it clearly resonates the new society. Before, even if you had the same idea, it was hard to determine that. Now a days, it is very easy to see that online.

Tacobell

The Lone Ranger - I am really looking forward to watching this movie

Allstate

Hyundai

Subway

Iron Man 3

Cars.com

M&M’S

Buz Light

Wonderful Pistachios

Motorola – The advertisement goes ahead and utilizes social media within itself

Fast & Furious 6

Tide

There are also some commercials that went ahead and added an annotation on their youtube video for further engagement.

Mercedes-Benz – Contest to win a trip to NYC to see the car and in their other commercial, their social media accounts are hyperlinked.

Century 21 - Links to other videos

Calvin Klien – Subscribe for the latest ads

I have definitely not covered each and every advertisement that was shown. More or less it is because of lack of social media mentions in those ads.

What do you think? Is it important to engage online viewers in advertisements? Does it matter when it comes to consumer behaviour?

Personally, I do not think that consumer behaviour is necessarily dependent on social media presence in advertisements. Though, it is certainly an enhancement technique.